A Mechanical Construction to Enhance the Stability and Safety of Lifting and Thrusting Manipulation of Acupuncture

Summary

This protocol designs a cannula that can be used to control the range of motion for the lifting and thrusting manipulation in acupuncture, thereby improving stability and safety. It can thus serve both the clinical application and scientific research of acupuncture treatment.

Abstract

The therapeutic effectiveness of acupuncture relies on both safety and stability, making these factors essential in acupuncture manipulation research. However, manual manipulation introduces unavoidable inaccuracies, which can impact the reliability of research findings. To address this challenge, a unique lifting and thrusting manipulation control cannula was designed in this study, offering flexible adjustment of movement amplitude. The cannula was created using 3D printing technology, and its effectiveness in maintaining stability was verified by recording the acupuncture needle's movement range with optical sensor technology. The study's results show that the control cannula significantly enhances the stability of acupuncture manipulation, reducing human error. This innovation suggests that the cannula could serve as a valuable auxiliary tool for ensuring both the precision and safety of acupuncture-related experimental research. Its adoption could also contribute to the standardization of acupuncture practices, ensuring more consistent and accurate research outcomes, which is essential for future advancements in acupuncture research and clinical applications.

Introduction

Needling manipulation is performed after the needle is inserted into the patient's skin to either induce a needle sensation known as "DeQi" (which refers to the sensation of meridian qi induction at the acupuncture point) or to adjust the direction and intensity of the needle sensation. As an essential part of acupuncture, different needling techniques produce varying effects¹. Needling manipulation is a critical factor that affects the effectiveness of acupuncture treatment^2,3. Research has shown that the signals activated by the lifting-thrusting technique are stronger tha....

Protocol

All procedures in the protocol were conducted on commercially available human simulation materials (see Table of Materials) rather than on humans, so no ethical issues were involved in this study. Informed consent was also obtained from all volunteers who participated in the study. The participants in this experiment were 20 students from the College of Acumox and Tuina at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. These students had completed coursework on the acupuncture lifting and thrusting.......

Discussion

This study innovatively designed a cannula to improve the stability and safety of acupuncture lifting and inserting manipulations and conducted experiments to evaluate its effectiveness. The researchers used 3D modeling for the structural design and white resin as the material for 3D printing. Compared to manufacturing a metal mold, 3D printing technology offers the advantages of lower cost and easier structural adjustments. Additionally, since the disposable needle is positioned sideways in the groove of the needle slee.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Blender	Blender Institute B.V.	Blender 4.2.2 LTS	Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation. Advanced users employ Blender's API for Python scripting to customize the application and write specialized tools; often these are included in Blender's future releases. Blender is well suited to individuals and small studios who benefit from its unified pipeline and responsive development process.
Human simulation materials	Dongguan Jiangzhao silicon industry Co., LTD	Acupuncture exercise skin model	Portable acupuncture practice skin model, simulated skin, with a ductile layer, can better simulate the feeling of acupuncture.
IBM SPSS Statistics	IBM	R26.0.0.0	The IBM SPSS Statistics software provides advanced statistical analysis for users of all experience levels. Offering a comprehensive suite of capabilities, it delivers flexibility and usability beyond traditional statistical software.
Prism 9	GraphPad Software, LLC.	GraphPad Prism 9.5.0 (525)	Prism is a software to draw graphs.
Simi Reality Motion Systems	Simi Reality Motion Systems GmbH	Simi Motion 2D/3D	Simi Motion provides an extensive platform for motion capture and 2D/3D movement analysis.